A love lost and a love's sacrifice.

Chapter 29

My way or not at all.

"Did you have fun with my husband this evening?" Came the cold steady voice of Seven of Nine from behind Kathryn.

It was so sudden and unexpected that it caused Kathryn to yell in the darkness of the night and drop he handbag. Spinning round to see who was now pressing their body into hers Kathryn back away seeing who the tall radiant blonde haired woman was. "Argh, Seven!" Kathryn exclaimed as she hastily bent down and picked up the contents of her handbag without taking her eyes of the younger woman.

"Ms. Janeway." Stated Seven in her usual cold voice as she towered above Kathryn who was scrabbling around on the ground trying to retrieve her swipe card to enter her house.

Hurriedly Kathryn walked towards the door of her home, swiping it open she steeped inside her own home and opened the door wide turning to look at the tall and very beautiful woman stood looking at her with one silvery eyebrow raised. "Well? Are you coming in?" Kathryn asked feeling quite exhausted after a busy day. Raising her head high the ex-Borg drone wasted no time in moving past her old commanding officer and into her home.

As Seven moved past her Kathryn let out a heavy sigh as she closed the door behind her. Walking steadily into her kitchen trying to give the air of not being at all fazed by her unexpected visitor. "Coffee?" she asked steadily as she moved towards the replicator without looking at the tall younger woman who stood watching her.

"No" Seven said stiffly "thank you."

"Well please don't mind if I do." Kathryn said as she ordered a black coffee from her replicator. When the blue shimmering light had deposited her drink Kathryn took it steadily in her hand and turned to face her guest, "So Seven to what do I owe this late night pleasure?" she asked slightly too stiffly to be welcoming.

Either Seven was pretending not to notice or she really didn't notice Kathryn was not at all interested in seeing her as Seven stated coolly "As I am sure you are aware myself and my husband had become separated."

"Yes he mentioned it." Kathryn sighed as she began to realise this could be a long and awkward conversation. One she really didn't want anyway but certainly not at this time of night after the busy day she had and the emotionally draining conversation she had concluded with Chakotay not half an hour before.

"You have turned him away from me." Seven told her, not in and a accusing tone more in her usual none emotional Borg like voice.

"Seven I have done no such thing." Kathryn insisted placing her now empty coffee mug in the recycelor and ordering another one as she rubbed her forehead in exasperation.

"We were fine until you came back into our lives."

With a heavy sigh Kathryn slowly placed her new coffee mug down turning to Seven and saying stiffly "Seven I am sorry but you can not make Chakotay want to be with you just because you want him to be."

"You have managed to make Chakotay want to be with you." A very cold sounding Seven pointed stated as she watched the older woman closely.

"Seven I don't know what he said to you or what happened when you separated but I did not make him want to be with me. Chakotay chooses his own destiny." Kathryn insisted feeling too tired to really care what Seven thought of the situation right then.

Seven stood with her usual stance tall and thin with her arms at her side and she told Kathryn "He informed me he was most displeased with me for violating him by creating a holographic reconstruction of him."

Kathryn watched Sevens emotionless face for a second before asking cautiously "Seven you do understand why that upset him don't you?"

"No doubt you will attempt to explain." The Ex-Borg told her in a tone of voice that Kathryn knew all too well.

"Seven you always did have a knack for wanting philosophical conversations in the middle of the night." Sighed a very tired Kathryn as she sand into the chair in her sitting room and gestured for the ex-Borg to do the same but of course she did not. When did she ever just sit?

"You were once my captain, my mentor, even my friend." Seven stated matter-of-factly.

"Yes." Kathryn replied slowly and tentatively really hoping that Seven would just get to the point and be gone.

"I come to you for guidance now." Seven went on to say.

"Guidance? What guidance?"

"I wish you to assist me in regaining my relationship with my husband and my children." At those words it was like something thumped Kathryn very hard in her heart. She knew in her head she trusted Chakotay's words that he wanted to be with her and not Seven but now she wondered, all the doubts came flashing back, what if he wants to be with Seven but he was only saying he didn't because she left him? What if now she wants him back he leaves me?

"Seven- I- Seven it is up to Chakotay if he wish's to be in a relationship with you or not." Kathryn managed to spit out hurriedly. Suddenly she was feeling quite sick.

"Right now he believes he wants to be married to you." Seven told her.

"He believes?" Kathryn asked not entirely sure what Seven could mean by using those words.

Seven raised her eyebrow the Kathryn telling her "the proper thing is for him to be married to me and continue in the family unit we have with our children."

"The proper thing?" Spluttered Kathryn "what about love Seven?"

"Irrelevant." Seven dismissed "Do you not agree the care of ones offspring of the up most importance?" When Kathryn rose from her seat to meet Seven's eyes for she knew where this was going Seven continued "To nurture them, to help them grow to teach and develop their minds."

"Of course" Nodded Kathryn, there was nothing she could deny there.

Seven continued, "then you agree a stable family collective is vital for my children and so their father needs to be part of that unit with me their mother."

"Ideally yes but-" began Kathryn.

Seven cut across Kathryn by telling her firmly "then my children require you to disengage in the relationship you have with their father so that he and I may continue to form our family collective."

Kathryn drew her eyebrows together and set her jawbone saying in her deep husky voice "Seven your children are lovely children, I would never presume to tell you what is best for them and they will always be their mother but providing two parents is not all that is needed for raising a human child. It's not just you and Chakotay are together so therefore job done mission complete."

"You will release Chakotay too me." Seven hissed stepping closer to the shorter woman and trying to tower over her to scare her.

"Seven I am not holding him!" exclaimed Kathryn getting angry as she took a step back and looked up at the younger woman angrily "You talk as though he were property, as though he were a prisoner."

Seven ignored Kathryn's words and demanded once more "you will no longer interact with my husband. You will terminate your relationship with Chakotay." Seven had chosen to stress the word my husband in a way that Kathryn did not like causing her anger to very nearly explode.

"Seven I care about you a great deal and I am sorry this has happened, for all of you, your children included. It's not the way any of us planned our lives to be but you can not simply order Chakotay and I not to see each other and then everything will be how you want it to be, life doesn't work that way." Kathryn was sincere in her words but also very hurt and angry by Seven's emotionless and thoughtless actions.

"It did fifteen years ago, I told Chakotay then."

"You told Chakotay? Seven what did you tell Chakotay fifteen years ago?" A confused and horrified Kathryn demanded to know in her deep husky command tone.

"I told him having done my research that if he were not in my life as my partner he was never going to be a part of my child's life." Seven told her calmly as though this were normal.

"You gave him an ultimatum?" Kathryn gasped her wide blue eyes searching Seven's blue eyes for understanding.

"Indeed. For my child's sake, you could never understand you are not a mother." These words hurt Kathryn more than Seven had intended them to, more than Seven knew they had. Kathryn was in fact a mother, a mother to a long lost child, a son whom she had never been allowed to raise as her own. She was once more going to be a mother, a little girl she had carried inside herself, but a shuttle accident had damaged her womb beyond repair killing her unborn daughter along with any more chances of becoming a mother.

Slowly Kathryn closed her eyes and whispered in question "You told him to leave me and become in an active relationship with you otherwise you would never allow him to see his child."

"I was planning to terminate unless he cooperated." The cold voice of Seven rang out through the silent sitting room As Kathryn stood with her eyes closed she felt a wave of nausea wash over her. Seven had threatened to have an abortion if Chakotay didn't become romantically involved in a relationship with her. Chakotay had been right, he had done it for his unborn Childs sake.

"Never speak to my husband again." Was the next thing Kathryn heard before the room went dark and she felt her body hit the floor.